RuneWalsh2112 I was excited by the initial announcement of a full length album release from Knives Out! The album was scheduled to be released in the fall of 2011 on the newly formed Razor To Wrist Records where Todd Smith and Jasan Stepp created a platform for all of their future Polkadot Cadaver/Dog Fashion Disco-related projects.

Even though it took the band another few month to complete the album and release it on February 14, 2012, I'd say that it was the time well spent. "Black Mass Hysteria" has managed to carefreely climb on top of my list of this year's best records and I'm pretty sure that it will remain in the top 5 for the remainder of this year!

Even though four out of these nine tracks have been previously featured on the band's 2010 "Rough Cuts" EP, I definitely can see how much these compositions have gained from a polished re-recording. "Surrounded By Demons" and "Pink On The Inside" sound even more brutal here than they ever did before while the rest of the new material doesn't disappoint either. I especially like "Hysteria", which reminds me a lot of Mike Patton projects like Tomahawk and really puts a great memorable edge to this album.

I can definitely recommend this album to fans of heavy groove metal with a twist of art metal added to the mix. I'm sure that the rest of you will at least find it memorable enough to mention it on your list over best releases from 2012, so you might as well give it a spin or two!

***** star songs: Hysteria (4:16) Surrounded By Demons (4:06) Blood Everywhere (3:32) Pink On The Inside (3:56)

**** star songs: Hide In The Sky (3:34) Eat Your Heart Out (4:57) Swollen Mistress (4:19) Robot Babylon (3:41) The First Time I Discovered A Dead Body (4:14)

RuneWalsh2112 "Rough Cuts" is pretty much what the title makes it out to be, a rough mix of material that would make up the bulk of the band's 2012 full length debut album "Black Mass Hysteria". I happened to stumble upon this EP back in the early 2011 when I was researching other side projects done by the two Polkadot Cadaver/Dog Fashion Disco masterminds Todd Smith and Jasan Stepp. This material seemed a lot heavier than any of the other projects with a clear focus on the metal groove while letting the experimental side of the duo take a back seat for this particular ride.

I found it quite interesting to compare these so called rough cuts of the four tracks with the re-recorded versions that made it to the full length studio album. Unlike many of the classic Dog Fashion Disco tracks that had the habit of re-emerging on later albums, "A Corpse Is A Corpse" made it to three out of the six studio albums in different shapes and forms. Unlike those classic tracks, "Rough Cuts" features complete versions of the compositions from the studio album but with a slightly different mixing done to the sound. This fact makes this EP a lot less interesting, especially after the full length album has been released. Still, one can always reverse the argument and say that the band felt that these compositions where good enough to begin with and thus no re-writes were needed. I'd definitely go for the latter and award this EP a status of excellence!

**** star songs: Surrounded By Demons (4:07) Pink On The Inside (3:46) Swollen Mistress (3:50) Eat Your Heart Out (4:23)